According to the analysis the President received a plurality of approval from residents of only the District of Columbia and 10 states, while his job approval was below 50% in the remaining forty states. Furthermore; in a majority of them, his approval was well below 45%.

This analysis is particularly troublesome given that while the President’s job approval rating nationally is below the 50% mark, the President’s reelection rests not within the national opinion as much as it does within the collective electoral college results that arrived at through the opinions reflected in each individual state. And while a Real Clear Politics average of national polls put the Presidents approval rating at 46.5% and his disapproval rating is at 47.9%, what the Gallup state-by-state analysis shows is that the President’s challenge is actually tougher than the national polls indicate.

Gallup points out that President Obama received a 44% job approval rating in his third year in office, which is down from 47% in his second year. If that trend were to continue, Ron Paul could be nominated by the G.O.P. and probably defeat President Obama handily. But reality dictates that Ron Paul will never see the light of day as a Republican presidential nominee, and that President Obama’s numbers are not likely to trend downward as he embarks upon a billion dollar campaign that will seek to rehabilitate his own image while eviscerating the image of his Republican opponent.

However, if the President finds his reelection effort failing to reverse the trend of his existing numbers and change the opinions that voters have of him now, he is doomed. Based upon the current trend, If the President were to only carry those states in the Gallup poll which he he had a net positive approval rating in 2011, he would lose the 2012 election with 215 electoral votes, to the Republican nominee’s 323 electoral votes.

A White House 2012 breakdown of the Gallup study demonstrates how daunting a challenge lies ahead for President Obama.

Based upon his current state-by-state approval ratings, if we give President Obama each state where his rating is at 50% or above, he would lose the election by winning 159 electoral college votes from D.C., California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Vermont. The Republican nominee would receive 379 electoral votes, 109 more than needed.

But White House 2012 tried to be a bit more realistic and decided to breakdown these numbers down by giving President Obama the benefit of the doubt by assuming he can turn his numbers around in all those states where his approval was as low as 45%.

That was not only generous, it was also responsible for a fairly more accurate picture of things.

Regardless of the numbers, there are some states that will not likely vote Republican regardless of how bad a job President Obama is doing or who the Republican presidential nominee is. States like Washington and Oregon on the West Coast will probably remain dark blue and the president may easily turn around his downward trending approval ratings among the liberal sympathisers of those states. That accounts for 19 more electoral votes. Then you can easily see the President take Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan in the Midwest. That’s 36 more electoral votes. Then because his numbers are barely above 45% in Iowa, let’s say he can pull off some magic there, a state which he won in 2008. That’s 6 more. Then on the East Coast, you’ll find Maine, and Rhode Island remaining true blue. That’s another 8 electoral votes. And throw in Pennsylvania too if for no other than reason than the Southeast portion of the state may still be strongly under the President’s spell. That’s 20 more for a total shift of 89 electoral votes which gives President Obama 248 to the G.O.P.’s 290, a figure that still gives the win to the Republican nominee with 20 more electoral votes than needed.

With 29 electoral votes, this would make Florida the key to the President’s winning reelection. Without it he needs Ohio with 18 electoral votes and at least one of the following other states; Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, or North Carolina.

Those four states are not goof for him right now, but he has better numbers in them than he does in other states like New Hampshire or Arizona.

But even these state’s will be hard for Obama. Currently his job approval is 40.4% in Colorado, 41.7% in New Mexico, 41.3% in Nevada, and 43.7% in North Carolina. Meanwhile his approval numbers in Florida and Ohio are at 43.6% and 42.1% respectively.

While turning these numbers around will not be impossible in the course of the lifetime that politically speaking, exists between now and November, doing so will be quite a dramatic achievement. One that may require not just a well run campaign on the President’s part, but also a badly managed campaign on the part of whoever his Republican opponent is.

On a sidenote, I can not figure out for the life of me how the President’s job approval rating went up in a place like Wyoming. It went up slightly in Connecticut and Maine, but those two states are known for the lunacy of their liberalism and in many cases their socialism. But Wyoming?

As for the final outcome, no one can honestly say they know how the election will end. But based upon a bit of instinct, the issues that will play out during the campaign, and the existing numbers, I offer my own following projections.

It should be noted that if this scenario does come to fruition, there is the potential for an Electoral College crisis, for it offers the possibility of a tie in the Electoral College:

However I do not suspect that such a tie will occur because of the battleground states that I believe this will come down to, I foresee Republicans winning Pennsylvania, Colorado, and New Mexico.

Fresh off of his poor third place showing in Florida, Rick Santorum is trying to take advantage of Newt Gingrich’s big 15% second place loss to Mitt Romney in the Sunshine State by reclaiming the title of “conservative alternative” to Mitt Romney, the big winner in Tuesday’s primary contest [see the ad below this post].

The ad entitled “Deal”, is a very powerful condemnation of Gingrich which catches you off guard with opening arguments that would have you think the ad is comparing Santorum to his three Republican rivals, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, and Ron Paul. It claims that the three politicians in question support legislative policies which are conservative anathema; Cap-and-Trade, amnesty, and the government bailouts. It would be bad enough for Santorum’s Republican rivals to have to wear all three of those issues around their necks, but the surprise comes when it is revealed that three politicians in question are not Romney, Paul, and Gingrich but rather President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Newt Gingrich.

The surprise comparison is twice as debilitating for Gingrich because while you might expect Mitt Romney to be accused of being too liberal, this ad avoids Romney and shockingly puts Newt Gingrich in an entirely differently league, one that puts him directly in the room with iconic liberals Obama and Pelosi.

The ad happens to be one of the most effective of this campaign cycle to date. It is produced well and is quite creative. It also presents Santorum’s case against Newt in a way that avoids being overly outlandish and to the point of being too hard to believe.

Yet while the ad is quite good, it is also indicative of the unfortunate position that Rick Santorum finds himself in. This ad pits him against Newt Gingrich, not frontrunner Mitt Romney, and it signals the fact that Santorum knows he is still competing in a primary within the primary………. the conservative primary within the Republican primary. It demonstrates that Rick Santorum is in a desperate fight to just get in to the race against Mitt Romney.

The good news for Santorum is that it is quite possible that conservatives have not yet ensconced themselves in Newt’s camp and Rick could still possibly win over a majority of them. One most notable conservative to recently go to Santorum’s side is Michele Malkin, a talking head with a considerably large conservative following. But at the same time it is a little late in this race for Santorum to hope his horse places or shows when the only ticket he can cash in on is the one to win.

But hope springs eternal and this ad is has a spin on it that forces me to give Rick Santorum a lot of credit, even though I believe it will help Mitt Romney than it will help Santorum.

As is the norm for Florida, the Sunshine State has again made electoral history. For the first time, the Republican winner of the South Carolina primary, lost the Florida primary. What it means in the long term is uncertain, but what it means in the short term is quite apparent. Nationally, Republicans have no real clear favorite for President yet.

Still, Mitt Romney’s win was significant and he deserve credit for orchestrating it. He spent $17 million to do it, but he did it and in the end, especially with 50 delegates now in his column, that is all that matters. However, while Romney once again becomes the frontrunner for the nomination, you will have to forgive me if do not declare this race over yet.

With little more than 5% of the delegates allocated so far, there is no denying that the race is not over yet, but it was made even more obvious to me after hearing Romney deliver his victory speech, and after Gingrich and Santorum gave their concession speeches.

In his speech, Mitt Romney rose to the occasion and sounded enthusiastic, but humble, and most of all, he sounded presidential. He delivered a speech that allowed people to truly begin to get comfortable with the idea of him being the candidate who can take the fight to President Barack Obama and beat him. He didn’t seal the deal, but his Florida victory speech helped make people more willing to accept the now almost inevitability of his being nominated for president. And now back in the frontrunner position, Romney offered not only a brief glimpse of the potential that exists in his carrying the Republican banner, he even took some steps to put the ugliness of the intraparty battle for the nomination behind him by eloquently making the point that “a competitive primary does not divide us, it prepares us.”

But in his facing the fact that he came in second place to Romney with at least 15% less of the vote than Romney, Newt Gingrich offered a speech which oozed of defiance and held a true thirst for not just beating Barack Obama, but for bringing about the type of reforms that Americans want, but as of late, have not often come to see in either Republicans or Democrats. He also provided some of the best reasons for his candidacy to date.

While limiting his negative attacks to calling Romney a Massachusetts moderate, Newt introduced what was seemingly a very heartfelt, personal contract with the American people, a spin on the now famous 1994 Contract With America that he spearheaded and guided through Congress.

Newt’s personal contract consists of two parts. The first part is conditional and it requires that the people elect conservatives to Congress. If they do that, Newt promises that before he takes office, he will request that on January 3rd, 2013, the new Congress stays in session and immediately repeals Obamacare, Dodd-Franks, and Sarbanes Oxley, three bills that are being viewed as among the most detrimental legislative initiatives effecting our economy. Gingrich vows that if the American people elect strong conservative majorities to Congress, those three measures can be repealed by Congress and on the day of his inauguration, he will sign the legislation to rid us of those massive government burdens. The problem there is that unless it is veto proof majority, President Obama will have the opportunity to veto it before Gingrich has the opportunity to sign it. So Newt might want to hold back on his request for january 3rd vote on those issues.

The rest of Newt’s personal contract is a promise to promptly enact a series of constitutional executive orders that will consist of immediately abolishing the existence of all White House czars, an immediate order to commence construction of the Keystone Pipeline project, an executive order opening the American embassy in Jerusalem and essentially acknowledging that divided city as Israel’s capital, another executive order which would reinstate the Reagan policy that did not allow federal money to fund any abortions, anywhere in the world, and last but not least, he promised to enact an order that repeals any and all of the anti-religious acts enacted by the Obama Administration in what Newt described as the President’s war on religion.

Newt’s speech was far from a concession speech, but what it did do was offer voters some good reasons for why Newt should not give up. With a room full of supporters waving signs that reminded voters that there are 46 more states which have yet to vote, Newt demonstrated that he still has what it takes to continue contesting this election.

The other speech of note came from third place finisher Senator Rick Santorum.

Even though Santorum placed a very distant third with only 13% of the vote in Florida, his speech actually provided a good rationale for his own continued participation in this race.

Knowing full well that he was not going to have a strong showing in Florida, Santorum elected to make his primary night remarks from Nevada, where he is campaigning in advance of that state’s Caucus which takes place this Saturday.

Taking advantage of the very rarely traveled high road in their primary contest, Santorum exploited the bitter battle between Romney and Gingrich by looking like the adult in the room who had his eye on the real prize…….defeating President Obama.

He stated that he was not going to criticize the personal and public successes achieved by both Gingrich and Romney as they have done to one another. Instead he declared that republicans deserve better, and that he was going to focus on the issues important to the American people. However, Santorum did argue that Newt failed at taking the momentum he had coming out South Carolina and converting it in to establishing himself as the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney. According to Santorum, Newt proved to make himself the issue and the American people do not need a President who is the issue, but rather a President who can address the issues and solve the problems surrounding them.

All three speeches were actually quite good and they all provided a solid foundation and legitimate reasons for this nomination contest to remain competitive. The problem is that Santorum and Gingrich will still have to find the resources it takes to convince voters that it really isn’t over. If Newt can finally stick to the themes he struck in his speech in Florida, themes based on his being the anti-establishment candidate and a true conservative leader capable of achieving very real and very bold reforms, he can survive long enough to see another victory, but it may not happen for another month or more and the longer he goes without a victory, the harder it will be for him to achieve one.

Right now, the only thing we can be certain of is that Mitt Romney is the one in the catbird seat tonight. The real problem I see here though is that Romney is still the candidate which for numerous reasons, many Republicans seem to be settling for. Such uninspired support makes it quite possible for someone like Newt to turn things around by actually inspiring people and causing voters say, you know what? I don’t have to settle for Mitt. We can do better.”

Until Mitt Romney is willing to stop playing it safe, and proves that he too can be a bold leader, he will remain vulnerable to being overshadowed by the boldness of Newt Gingrich’s vision and red meat agenda. For Mitt it is now a judgement call and a gamble. Does he continue to play it safe and rely on his giant campaign war chest to suppress the amount of support Gingrich and risk the possibility of Newt turning things around again? Or does he step out of his safety zone and make an attempt to prove that he is more than just a wealthy Republican establishment candidate?

My experience with Romney leads me to believe that he will continue to play it safe with the expectation that Newt will be do just the opposite and a loss it all by taking one too many risks.

On a final note, yes I know that I did not mention Ron Paul and that I did not include his concession speech. And no it is not because I am afraid that if I give him any ink, people will flock to his side and elect him President. The reason I did not include Ron Paul is because he has yet to become a significant factor in this election and because he said absolutely nothing new in his speech following his single digit, last place showing in Florida.

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